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PART  14  VOLUME  2 


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WASTEHS    IX   AHT       PLATK   I 

PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BRAUN,  CLEMENT  1  CIE. 


335696 


LEONARDO    DA   VINCI 

POfiTKAIT  OP  MOJVA  LISA 

liOUVHE,  PAHIS 


I 


MASTEHS   IX    AHT      PIRATE   II 

fHOTOGRAPH   BY  BRAUN,    CLEMENT    &  CIE. 


LEONAEDO  DA  VIXCI 

THE  VIKGIX  OF  THE  HOCKS 

LOITVHE,    PAEIS 


MASTEBS  IN  AHT  PLATE  HI 

PHOTOwRAPM  BY  BRAUN,  CLEMENT  A  CIE. 


LEOXAKDO  UA   VlXCl(?) 

THE  VIKGIN   OF  THE  HOCKS 

XATIOXAIi  GALLEBT,  liOUDON 


MASTERS  IN  AHT      PLATK   IV 

PHOTOGRAPH   BY  ANOEBSON 


ATTKIBUTEU  TO  LEONARDO  DA  VINCI 

POHTKAIT  OF  AN  UNKNOWN  PRINCESS 

AMliROSIAN   LIBRARV.   MILAN 


P 

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a  2 


MASTERS   IX    AHT      PLATK   VI 

Photograph  by  braun,  clement  t  cie. 


LEONARDO  DA  VINCr 

ST.  JOHX  THE  RAPTIST 

LOUVRE,   PARIS 


MASTERS   IN   AKT      PLATK   VII 

PHOTOGRAPH    BY   BRAUN,    CLEMENT    A  CIE. 


ATTHIiJUTED  TO  LEOXAKDO  DA  VIXCI 

■  L,A  HELLE  KEEOXNIEHE  ' 

LOUVKE,   PAHIS 


MASTEKS   IX    AKT      PLATK   VIII 

P-OTOGRAPH    BY    ALINARl 


LKOAAHJJO   DA    TINCr 

AXGKI.  IX  VKROCCniOS  '  BAPTISM  OF  CHRIST  ' 

ACADEMY,  FLOEEXCE 


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"MASTKHS    I.\    ART       PLATE   IX 

Photograph  BY  8RAUN    cieMENTiciE. 


LKOXAHDC    J)A    VINCI 

ST.   AXXE,    THE  VIKGIX.   A.NJ)  THE  CUKIST-CHII^ 

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It  is  regretable  that  we  have  no  portrait  of  Leonardo  in  that  wonderful  youthful 
beauty  which  all  his  contemporaries  agree  to  extol.  "  His  figure,"  says  the  anony- 
mous biographer,  "  was  beautifully  proportioned,  he  usually  wore  a  rose-colored  coat 
and  long  hose,  and  his  hair  fell  in  luxuriant  curls  as  far  as  his  waist."  The  only 
authentic  likeness  we  have  of  him,  however,  is  the  red-chalk  drawing  here  repro- 
duced, executed  bv  his  own  hand  during  the  last  years  of  his  life,  when  the  charac- 
ter of  sage  and  philosopher  had  fullv  imprinted  itself  upon  the  majestic  face. 


MASTERS    IN     ART 


tt^onartio  tra  Ftnti 


BORN    1452:    DIED    lolO 
FLORENTINE    SCHOOL 


(QUARTERLY     REVIEW  VOL.     190     [1899] 

THE  place  which  Leonardo  da  Vinci  holds  in  the  history  of  art  must 
always  be  unique.  He  stands  alone  among  the  painters  of  the  Renais- 
sance, by  reason  not  only  of  the  rare  perfection  of  the  high  intellectual  qualities 
of  his  art,  but  of  the  extraordinary  influence  which  he  exerted  upon  his  con- 
temporaries, and  the  universal  character  of  his  genius.  Never  before  or 
since  in  the  annals  of  the  human  race  has  the  same  passionate  desire  for 
knowledge  been  combined  with  the  same  ardent  love  of  beauty,  never  have 
artistic  and  scientific  powers  been  united  in  the  same  degree  as  in  this  won- 
derful man.  Painting  was  only  one  of  the  varied  forms  in  which  his  activity 
was  displayed.  As  sculptor,  architect,  and  engineer  Leonardo  was  alike 
illustrious  in  his  day  ;  as  a  philosopher  and  man  of  Science  he  has  been  justly 
hailed  as  the  precursor  of  Galileo,  of  Bacon,  and  of  Descartes.  Alexander  von 
Humboldt  proclaimed  him  to  be  the  greatest  physicist  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, the  one  man  of  his  age  who  "  united  a  remarkable  knowledge  of  mathe- 
matics with  the  most  admirable  intuition  of  nature  ;  "  and  scholars  of  our 
day  have  recognized  in  him  —  to  use  the  words  of  Hallam  — ■  "  a  thinker 
who  anticipated  the  grander  discoveries  of  modern  science." 

Leonardo  da  Vinci  was  born  in  the  year  1452,  at  Vinci,  a  fortified  town 
half-way  between  Florence  and  Pisa.  He  was  the  natural  son  of  Ser  Piero  An- 
tonio da  Vinci,  a  notary  who  soon  acquired  a  connection  in  Florence,  where 
he  held  important  offices,  and  occupied  a  house  on  the  Piazza  San  Firenze. 
There  Leonardo  lived  until  he  was  twenty-four  years  of  age.  As  he  grew 
up  he  attracted  attention  not  only  by  his  personal  beauty  and  great  strength, 
but  also  by  his  passion  for  learning.  A^usic  and  mathematics  were  among 
his  favorite  studies,  but  he  was  still  fonder  of  drawing  and  modelling.  At 
fifteen  he  entered  the  studio  of  Andrea  Verocchio,  who,  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  scientific  school  of  Florentine  artists,  was  well  fitted  to  develop 
Leonardo's  peculiar  genius.  Here  the  brilliant  youth  became  a  great  favorite, 
both  with  his  master  and  comrades,  among  whom  were  Peru^ino  and  Lorenzo 
di  Credi.    In  147  2  his  name  was  inscribed  on  the  roll  of  the  Painters'  Guild, 


22  fpla^ttt^in^tt 

and  soon  afterwards  he  received  a  pension  from  Lorenzo  de'  Medici. 
Through  this  influential  patron  he  obtained  a  commission  in  147  8  to  paint 
an  altar-piece  for  the  chapel  of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  and  in  1480  he  signed 
a  contract  by  which  he  agreed  to  complete  another  for  the  monks  of  San 
Donato.  Neither  of  these  pictures  was  ever  executed  ;  but  the  cartoon  of 
the  'Adoration  of  the  Magi,'  which  still  hangs  in  the  Uffizi,  was  probably  a 
design  for  one  of  the  two.   .   .   . 

In  July,  1481,  Leonardo  was  living  in  his  own  house  in  Florence.  After 
that  his  name  disappears  from  contemporary  records  ;  and  it  is  not  until  1487 
that  we  find  any  mention  of  him  again.  By  that  time  he  was  a  painter  and 
architect  of  great  renown,  and  was  living  in  Milan  in  the  service  of  Lodovico 
Sforza.  This  silence  of  documents  has  given  rise  to  all  manner  of  strange 
theories  accounting  for  Leonardo's  occupations  during  the  interim  of  five  or 
six  years.  Dr.  Richter  ventured  on  the  bold  conjecture  that  the  painter 
visited  the  East,  and  entered  the  service  of  the  Sultan  of  Cairo  as  engineer ; 
but  this  ingenious  theory  has  been  refuted  by  convincing  arguments.  In  the 
absence  of  other  documents  we  turn  to  the  narrative  of  the  Anonimo  who 
wrote  Leonardo's  biography  early  in  the  sixteenth  century.  That  writer  tells 
us  that  when  Leonardo  was  thirty  years  old  he  was  sent  to  Milan  by  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici,  to  bear  a  silver  lute  to  his  friend  Lodovico  Sforza.  This  would 
fix  the  date  of  Leonardo's  arrival  at  the  Milanese  Court  in  1482,  or  early 
in  the  following  year. 

Lodovico  Sforza,  from  the  moment  of  his  accession  to  power  in  1480, 
had  determined  to  raise  a  colossal  statue  in  memory  of  his  father,  the  famous 
Duke  Francesco.  He  had  probablv  applied  to  his  friend,  Lorenzo  de'  Medici, 
for  a  sculptor  who  could  execute  the  work,  and  it  was  then,  no  doubt,  that 
Leonardo  wrote  the  famous  letter  in  which  he  offered  his  services  to  the  duke, 
and  proudly  enumerated  his  different  talents  and  capabilities.  After  dwelling 
on  his  capacity  as  military  engineer  and  his  ability  to  construct  cannons  and 
scaling-ladders,  mortars  and  engines  of  beautiful  and  useful  shape,  he  con- 
cludes :  "  In  time  of  peace,  I  believe  I  can  equal  any  one  in  architecture,  in 
constructing  public  and  private  buildings,  and  in  conducting  water  from  one 
place  to  another.  I  can  execute  sculpture,  whether  in  marble,  bronze,  or 
terra-cotta  ;  and  in  painting  I  can  do  as  much  as  any  other,  be  he  who  he 
may.  Further,  I  could  engage  to  execute  the  bronze  horse  in  eternal  mem- 
ory of  your  father  and  the  illustrious  house  of  Sforza." 

Lodovico  soon  recognized  the  rare  genius  of  the  young  Florentine  master, 
and  manifold  were  the  lines  in  which  Leonardo's  talents  were  employed 
during  the  sixteen  years  which  he  spent  in  the  duke's  service.  But  the 
equestrian  statue  was  probably  the  first  important  commission  which  he  re- 
ceived. Endless  were  the  preparations  which  Leonardo  made  for  this  great 
task.  He  applied  himself  to  an  elaborate  study  of  the  structure  and  anatomy 
of  the  horse,  and  wrote  a  whole  treatise  on  the  subject.  Unfortunately,  he 
could  not  satisfy  himself,  and  tried  one  design  after  another,  without  decid- 
ing upon  any  of  them,  until  even  the  duke  began  to  lose  patience.  Three  years 
and  a  half  later,  however,  at  the  wedding  of  Lodovico's  niece  Bianca,  Leo- 


EconarJJotialDinci  23 

nardo's  model  was  sufficiently  advanced  to  be  placed  on  the  piazza  of  the 
Castello,  under  a  triumphal  arch.  Poets  and  chroniclers  hailed  the  great 
statue  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  age.  They  compared  Leonardo  to 
Phidias  and  Praxiteles,  and  Lodovico  to  Pericles  and  Augustus.  Luca  Pacioli, 
the  famous  mathematician,  tells  us  that  the  monument  was  twenty-six  feet 
high,  and  when  cast  in  bronze  was  expected  to  weigh  200,000  pounds. 
Unfortunately,  by  this  time  Lodovico's  dominions  were  already  threatened 
by  foreign  invaders,  and  financial  difficulties  put  an  end  to  his  most  cher- 
ished schemes.  The  statue  was  never  cast,  and  after  the  fall  of  Lodovico 
and  the  occupation  of  Milan  by  the  French,  Leonardo's  model  was  allowed 
to  perish. 

This  statue  was  the  chief,  but  by  no  means  the  only  work  to  which 
Leonardo's  time  and  labors  were  devoted  during  the  first  ten  years  of  his 
residence  at  Milan.  Whether  in  the  capacity  of  architect  or  engineer,  of 
painter  or  decorator,  the  Florentine  master's  services  were  in  continual  re- 
quest. In  1487  he  made  a  model  for  the  cupola  of  Milan  Cathedral.  In 
1490  he  was  summoned  to  Pavia,  to  give  his  opinion  on  the  new  Duomo  in 
that  city,  but  was  hastily  recalled  to  superintend  the  decorations  of  the  ball- 
room in  the  Castello  on  the  occasion  of  Lodovico's  marriage.  Later,  he  was 
appointed  ducal  engineer,  and,  if  he  did  not  actually  have  a  share  in  the 
famous  Martesana  canal,  he  was  no  doubt  consulted  by  the  duke  in  the 
construction  of  the  vast  scheme  of  irrigation  by  which  Lodovico  fertilized 
the  Lomellina.  These  varied  occupations  left  Leonardo  little  time  for  paint- 
ing ;  yet,  during  the  years  which  he  spent  in  Lodovico's  service,  several  of 
his  most  important  works  of  art  were  executed,  and  his  famous  treatise  on 
painting  was  written.  The  one  genuine  easel-picture  of  this  period  which  re- 
mains is  '  The  Virgin  of  the  Rocks,'  now  in  the  Louvre.  Further,  in  the  last 
years  of  Lodovico's  rule  Leonardo  painted  the  masterpiece  of  his  life,  '  The 
Last  Supper,'  in  the  refectory  of  Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie. 

After  the  fall  of  Duke  Lodovico,  in  1499,  Leonardo  left  Milan  ;  and  the 
next  sixteen  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  constant  journeyings  up  and 
down  Italy.  During  fifteen  months  he  remained  in  Florence,  working  at  a 
cartoon  for  the  Servite  monks,  who  had  commissioned  him  to  paint  an  altar- 
piece  for  their  church  of  the  Annunziata.  "  For  a  long  time,"  says  Vasari, 
"  he  kept  them  waiting  and  did  nothing  at  all.  At  last  he  produced  a  car- 
toon with  the  Madonna,  St.  Anne,  and  the  Christ,  a  work  which  not  only 
filled  all  the  artists  with  admiration,  but  brought  a  continuous  procession  of 
men  and  women,  old  and  young,  to  the  hall  in  the  convent  where  it  was 
exhibited.  The  whole  town  was  stirred,  and  you  might  have  fancied  it  was 
a  procession  on  some  solemn  feast-day."  It  was  without  doubt  this  compo- 
sition that  he  afterwards  repeated  in  oils  for  Francis  I.,  and  which  is  now 
in  the  Louvre. 

In  July,  1502,  we  find  Leonardo  at  Urbino,  inspecting  fortifications  for 
Ca?sar  Borgia,  who  had  taken  him  into  his  service  as  military  engineer  and 
architect.  He  travelled  through  Romagna,  —  "  the  realm  of  all  stupidity,"  as 
he  calls  it  in  one  passage,  —  sketching  fortresses  and  drawing  plans,  and  not- 


24  jUa^tcn^in^rt 

ing  any  curiosities  which  he  saw  on  his  journey.  But  early  in  1503  he  was 
back  in  Florence,  once  more  absorbed  in  the  study  of  mathematics.  In  July 
he  made  elaborate  plans  for  a  canal  between  Pisa  and  Florence.  In  the  fol- 
lowing January  he  was  present  at  the  consultation  held  between  the  lead- 
ing artists  of  the  day,  to  decide  upon  the  site  for  Michelangelo's  statue 
of 'David.' 

By  this  time  both  Leonardo  and  Michelangelo  had  been  commissioned  to 
prepare  plans  for  the  decoration  of  the  Council  Hall  in  the  Palazzo  Vecchio. 
The  subject  assigned  to  Leonardo  was  the  battle  between  the  Florentines 
and  the  Milanese  at  Anghiari  in  1440  ;  and  the  Signory  agreed  to  pay  him 
fifteen  florins  a  month,  on  condition  that  his  cartoon  should  be  completed 
by  the  end  of  the  following  February.  Throughout  the  autumn  and  winter 
Leonardo  worked  with  unremitting  ardor ;  and  by  February,  1505,  the  great 
cartoon  was  completed.  The  subject  especially  appealed  to  him,  and  the 
rivalry  with  Michelangelo  impelled  him  to  put  forth  all  his  powers.  Unfor- 
tunately he  had  read  of  a  recipe  for  a  stucco  ground  employed  by  the  ancient 
Romans,  which  he  determined  to  try.  But  after  devoting  endless  time  and 
labor  to  the  preparation  of  the  wall  in  the  Council  Hall,  and  after  painting 
the  central  group  of  horsemen  fighting  round  the  standard,  Leonardo  found 
that  the  substance  was  too  soft  and  that  his  color  began  to  run.  This  un- 
happy result  filled  him  with  disgust ;  and  before  long  he  gave  up  his  task 
and  abandoned  the  work  in  despair.  Leonardo's  failure  in  this  case  is  the 
more  lamentable  because  of  the  unanimous  testimony  borne  by  his  contem- 
poraries'to  the  magnificence  of  his  design.  All  alike  dwell  with  enthusiasm 
on  the  heroic  beauty  of  the  armed  warriors  and  the  noble  forms  of  the  horses 
in  the  central  group.  In  1513  the  Signory  ordered  a  balustrade  to  be  placed 
in  the  Council  Hall  "  for  the  protection  of  the  figures  painted  by  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  on  the  wall."  After  that  we  hear  no  more  of  the  painting,  which 
was  probably  allowed  to  perish.  Leonardo's  cartoon  was  placed  in  the 
Pope's  Hall,  and  that  of  Michelangelo  was  hung  in  the  Medici  Palace. 
Benvenuto  Cellini  saw  them  in  1559,  and  describes  them  as  the  school  of 
the  whole  world.  In  the  course  of  the  next  century  both  of  these  priceless 
works  vanished,  and  to-day  nothing  remains  to  us  of  Leonardo's  masterpiece 
but  a  few  studies  of  separate  groups  and  figures  in  diffxsrent  collections,  and 
Rubens'  sketch  of  the  central  group. 

A  better  fortune  has  attended  the  other  great  creation  of  these  last  years 
of  the  painter's  residence  in  his  native  city.  This  is  the  portrait,  now  in  the 
Louvre,  of  '  Mona  Lisa,'  the  fair  Neapolitan  wife  of  Francesco  del  Gio- 
condo,  magistrate  and  prior  of  Florence. 

The  bitter  disappointment  which  Leonardo  felt  at  the  failure  of  his  paint- 
ing in  the  Palazzo  Vecchio  was  increased  by  a  vexatious  lawsuit  into  which 
he  was  drawn,  owing  to  the  refusal  of  his  half-brothers  to  allow  him  to 
share  in  his  father's  and  uncle's  inheritance  ;  and  just  at  this  time,  when 
worries  and  vexations  weighed  heavily  upon  his  mind,  the  painter  received 
an  invitation  to  enter  the  service  of  the  French  king,  Louis  XII.  In  JVIay, 
1506,  he  went  to  Milan,  then  in  the  possession  of  the  French,  having  ob- 


Stconarliotial^inci  25 

tallied  three  months'  leave  of  absence  from  the  gonfaloniere  of  Florence, 
Piero  Soderini,  and  was  once  more  employed  on  architectural  and  engineer- 
ing works  in  Lombardy.  But  when  the  French  viceroy  in  Milan,  Charles 
d'Amboise,  begged  for  an  extension  of  the  artist's  leave,  Soderini  refused 
sternly.  "  Leonardo,"  he  wrote,  "  has  not  treated  the  Republic  well.  He 
received  a  large  sum  of  money,  but  has  only  made  a  beginning  of  the  work 
which  was  entrusted  to  him.  He  has,  in  fact,  acted  like  a  traitor."  The 
painter  offered  to  return  the  money  which  he  had  received  for  the  cartoon 
in  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  but  Soderini  refused  to  take  it ;  and  when,  in  Jan- 
uary, 1507,  Louis  Xn.  himself  addressed  a  pressing  letter  to  the  Signory, 
begging  that  Leonardo  might  await  his  arrival  in  Milan,  his  request  was 
granted. 

In  1 5  1 2  an  unexpected  change  of  fortune  restored  Lodovico's  son,  Maxi- 
milian Sforza,  to  the  throne  of  his  fathers.  The  French  were  driven  out, 
but  Leonardo  remained  in  Milan  until  the  following  summer.  Then  the 
disturbed  state  of  affairs  sent  him  back  to  Florence  ;  and  in  the  following 
autumn  he  accompanied  Giuliano  de'  Medici  to  Rome,  to  attend  the  coro- 
nation of  his  brother,  the  new  pope,  Leo  X.  There  he  received  a  cordial 
welcome  from  Pope  Leo ;  but  his  sojourn  in  the  Eternal  City  proved 
neither  pleasant  nor  productive.  Leonardo  spent  his  time  in  anatomical 
studies,  in  vain  attempts  to  realize  his  old  dream  of  a  flying-machine,  and 
in  writing  a  dissertation  on  the  papal  coinage.  In  fact,  he  did  everything 
except  work  at  his  art.  "Alas  !  "  exclaimed  Pope  Leo,  when  he  found  the 
painter  distilling  herbs  to  make  a  new  varnish,  "  this  man  will  do  nothing, 
for  he  thinks  about  finishing  his  picture  before  he  begins  it." 

Tired  of  Rome,  Leonardo's  thoughts  turned  back  to  his  old  French  pa- 
trons. Louis  XII.  was  dead,  but  the  new  king,  Francis  I.,  was  already  well 
disposed  in  his  favor;  and  when,  in  August,  1515,  Francis  entered  Italy, 
Leonardo  hastened  to  meet  him  at  Pavia.  The  new  monarch  gave  him  a 
pension  of  seven  hundred  crowns,  and  treated  him  with  the  greatest  honor. 
"King  Francis,"  writes  Cellini,  "was  passionately  enamored  of  the  great 
master's  talents,  and  told  me  himself  that  never  any  man  had  come  into  the 
world  who  knew  as  much  as  Leonardo."  Leonardo  not  only  accompanied 
his  new  patron  to  Milan,  but  followed  him  to  France  in  1516,  and  settled 
at  the  Hotel  de  Cloux,  a  manor-house  between  the  royal  palace  and  the 
town  of  Amboise.  His  faithful  pupil  Melzi  accompanied  him,  and  watched 
tenderly  over  the  great  man's  declining  years.  But  one  picture  of  this  period 
remains,  —  the  'St.  Anne,'  now  in  the  Louvre. 

Leonardo's  health  had  begun  to  fail,  and  before  long  his  right  arm  became 
paralyzed,  but  his  powers  of  mind  were  still  as  active  as  ever.  He  sketched 
out  plans  for  a  new  palace  at  Amboise,  and  devoted  his  attention  to  the  con- 
struction of  a  canal  near  Romorantin,  which  shoihld  connect  Touraine  and 
the  Lyonnais.  But  his  strength  gradually  gave  way.  He  could  no  longer 
paint,  and  soon  gave  up  writing.  The  last  entry  in  his  note-book  bears  the 
date  June  24,  1518.  He  lingered  on  through  the  next  autumn  and  winter, 
until,  on  Easter  eve,  April  25,  1519,  feeling  his  end  to  be  drawing  near,  he 


26  jma^tcr^in^rt 

sent  for  a  notary  and  dictated  his  will.  Ten  days  afterwards,  on  the  second 
of  May,  he  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  royal  chapel  of  St.  Florentin,  at 
Amboise. 


C|)e  art  of  Jleonartio  tia  '^ind 

JOHN      ADDINGTON      SYMONDS  'THE      RENAISSANCE     IN     ITALY' 

LEONARDO  is  the  wizard  or  diviner;  to  him  the  Renaissance  offers 
^  her  mystery  and  lends  her  magic.  Art  and  science  were  never  separated 
in  his  work  ;  and  both  were  not  unfrequently  subservient  to  some  fanciful 
caprice,  some  bizarre  freak  of  originality.  Curiosity  and  love  of  the  uncom- 
mon ruled  his  nature. 

"  While  he  was  a  boy,"  says  Vasari,  "  Leonardo  modelled  in  terra-cotta 
certain  heads  of  women  smiling."  When  an  old  man,  he  left  '  Mona  Lisa ' 
on  the  easel,  not  quite  finished, —  the  portrait  of  a  subtle,  shadowy,  uncer- 
tain smile.  This  smile,  this  enigmatic  revelation  of  a  movement  in  the  soul, 
this  seductive  ripple  on  the  surface  of  the  human  personality,  was  to  Leonardo 
a  symbol  of  the  secret  of  the  world,  an  image  of  the  universal  mystery.  It 
haunted  him  all  through  his  life,  and  innumerable  were  the  attempts  he 
made  to  render  by  external  form  the  magic  of  this  fugitive  and  evanescent 
charm.   .   .   . 

Leonardo's  turn  for  physical  science  led  him  to  study  the  technicalities  of 
art  with  fervent  industry.  Whatever  his  predecessors  had  acquired  in  the 
knowledge  of  materials,  the  chemistry  of  colors,  the  mathematics  of  compo- 
sition, the  laws  of  perspective,  and  the  illusions  of  chiaroscuro,  he  developed 
to  the  utmost.  To  find  a  darker  darkness  and  a  brighter  brightness  than  had 
yet  been  shown  upon  the  painter's  canvas,  to  solve  problems  of  foreshorten- 
ing, to  deceive  the  eye  by  finely  graduated  tones  and  subtle  touches,  to  sub- 
mit the  freest  play  of  form  to  simple  figures  of  geometry  in  grouping,  were 
among  the  objects  he  most  earnestly  pursued.  Wherever  he  perceived  a  dif- 
ficulty he  approached  and  conquered  it.  Love,  which  is  the  soul  of  art  — 
Love,  the  bond-slave  of  Beauty  and  the  son  of  Poverty  by  Craft  —  led  him 
to  these  triumphs. 

Art,  nature,  life,  the  mysteries  of  existence,  the  infinite  capacity  of  human 
thought,  the  riddle  of  the  world,  all  that  the  Greeks  called  Pan,  so  swayed 
and  allured  him  that,  while  he  dreamed  and  wrought  and  never  ceased  from 
toil,  he  seemed  to  have  achieved  but  little.  The  fancies  of  his  brain  were, 
perhaps,  too  subtle  and  too  fragile  to  be  made  apparent  to  the  eyes  of  men. 
He  was  wont,  after  years  of  labor,  to  leave  his  work  still  incomplete,  feeling 
that  he  could  not  perfect  it  as  he  desired ;  yet  even  his  most  fragmentary 
sketches  have  a  finish  beyond  the  scope  of  lesser  men.  "  Extraordinary 
power,"  says  Vasari,  "  was  in  his  case  conjoined  with  remarkable  facility,  a 
mind  of  regal  boldness,  and  magnanimous  daring."  Yet  he  was  constantly 
accused  of  indolence  and  inabilitv  to  execute.    Often  and  often  he  made  vast 


3leonartiotia1Dinci  27 

preparations  and  accomplished  nothing.  It  is  well  known  how  the  prior  of 
Santa  Maria  delle  Grazie  complained  that  Leonardo  stood  for  days  looking  at 
his  fresco, and  for  weeks  never  came  near  it ;  how  the  monks  of  the  Annunziata 
at  Florence  were  cheated  out  of  their  painting,  for  which  elaborate  designs 
had  yet  been  made.  A  good  answer  to  account  for  the  delay  was  always  ready 
on  the  painter's  lips,  as  that  the  man  of  genius  works  most  when  his  hands 
are  idlest  ;  Judas,  sought  in  vain  through  all  the  thieves'  resorts  in  Milan,  is 
not  found  ;  "  I  cannot  hope  to  see  the  face  of  Christ  except  in  Paradise." 
"  I  can  do  anything  possible  to  man,"  he  wrote  to  Lodovico  Sforza,  "  and 
as  well  as  any  living  artist  either  in  sculpture  or  painting  ;  "  but  he  would 
do  nothing  as  task-work,  and  his  creative  brain  loved  better  to  invent  than 
to  execute.    .    .    . 

He  set  before  himself  aims  infinite  instead  of  finite.  His  designs  of  wings 
to  fly  with  symbolize  his  whole  endeavor.  He  believed  in  solving  the  insol- 
uble ;  and  nature  had  so  richly  dowered  him  in  the  very  dawn-time  of  dis- 
covery that  he  was  almost  justified  in  this  delusion.  Having  caught  the 
Proteus  of  the  world,  he  tried  to  grasp  him  ;  but  the  god  changed  shape  be- 
neath his  touch.  Having  surprised  Silenus  asleep,  he  begged  from  him  a  song  ; 
but  the  song  Silenus  sang  was  so  marvellous  in  its  variety,  so  subtle  in  its 
modulations,  that  Leonardo  could  do  no  more  than  recall  scattered  phrases. 
His  Proteus  was  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance.  The  Silenus  from  whom  he 
forced  the  song  was  the  double  nature  of  man  and  of  the  world. 

JEAN      PAUL      RICHTER  'LEONARDO      DA      VINCl' 

DA  VINCI  stands  alone  in  the  history  of  art,  as  one  who  both  conceived 
and  realized  ideals  which  were  wholly  independent  of  the  antique.  In  all 
his  numerous  writings  he  never  quotes  the  antique  as  a  means  of  instruction 
for  the  artist.  Indeed,  he  only  once  mentions  the  "  Graeci  et  Romani,"  and 
then  merely  as  masters  of  the  treatment  of  flowing  drapery.  He  was  the  first 
who  ventured  to  base  all  art  instruction  exclusively  and  entirely  upon  the 
study  of  nature  ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  his  genius  the  aims  of 
his  numerous  predecessors  culminate,  making  art  no  longer  dependent  upon 
tradition,  but  upon  the  immediate  study  of  nature  herself. 

Unlike  those  ideals  which  contemporary  artists  set  before  them,  he  imparted 
to  his  figures  a  grace  and  a  sensibility  at  once  strange  and  unaccountable.  . 
None  of  his  paintings  awe  one  in  the  sense  that  do  the  powerful  creations 
of  Michelangelo,  which  as  it  were  enthrall  the  soul.  His  charm  is  reserved 
for  those  who  by  deeper  examination  are  enabled  to  discern  and  appreciate 
those  subtle  and  hidden  meaning-s  with  which  his  works  are  charo;ed.  Leo- 
nardo  da  Vinci's  name  has  been  and  ever  will  be  a  popular  one  ;  his  art  can 
never  be  that ;   it  is  too  lofty,  too  sublime. 

WALTER    PATER  'STUDIES    IN    THE    HISTORY    OF    THE    RENAISSANCE' 

IT  is  bv  a  certain  mvstery  in  his  work,  and  something  enigmatical  beyond 
the  usual  measure  of  great  men,  that  Leonardo  fascinates,  or  perhaps  half 
repels.    Curiositv  and  the  desire  of  beautv  —  these  are  the  two  elementary 


28  :^a^  ttt  ^    in    ^tt 

forces  in  his  genius  ;  curiosity  often  in  conflict  with  the  desire  of  beauty,  but 
generating,  in  union  with  it,  a  type  of  subtle  and  curious  grace. 

The  movement  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  twofold  ;  partly  the  Renais- 
sance, partly  also  the  coming  of  what  is  called  the  "modern  spirit,"  with  its 
realism,  its  appeal  to  experience  :  it  comprehended  a  return  to  antiquity,  and 
a  return  to  nature.  Raphael  represented  the  return  to  antiquity,  and  Leo- 
nardo the  return  to  nature.  In  this  return  to  nature,  he  was  seeking  to  satisfy 
a  boundless  curiosity  by  her  perpetual  surprises,  a  microscopic  sense  of  finish 
by  her  Jinesse,  or  delicacy  of  operation,  that  subtilitas  naturae  which  Bacon 
notices.  His  observations  and  experiments  fill  thirteen  volumes  of  manu- 
script ;  and  those  who  can  judge  describe  him  as  anticipating  long  before,  by 
rapid  intuition,  the  later  ideas  of  science. 

He  who  thus  penetrated  into  the  most  secret  parts  of  nature  preferred  al- 
ways the  more  to  the  less  remote,  what,  seeming  exceptional,  was  an  instance 
of  law  more  refined,  the  construction  about  things  of  a  peculiar  atmosphere 
and  mixed  lights.  In  him  first  appears  the  taste  for  what  is  bizarre  or  recher- 
che in  landscape  -,  hollow  places  full  of  the  green  shadow  of  bituminous  rocks, 
ridged  reefs  of  trap-rock,  which  cut  the  water  into  quaint  sheets  of  light  — 
their  exact  antitype  is  in  our  own  western  seas  ;  all  the  solemn  effects  of 
moving  water.  His  landscape  is  the  landscape,  not  of  dreams  or  of  fancy, 
but  of  places  far  withdrawn,  and  hours  selected  from  a  thousand  with  a  mir- 
acle oi  finesse.  Through  Leonardo's  strange  veil  of  sight  things  reach  him 
so  ;  in  no  ordinary  night  or  day,  but  as  in  faint  light  of  eclipse,  or  in  some 
brief  interval  of  falling  rain  at  daybreak,  or  through  deep  water. 

And  not  into  nature  only  ;  but  he  plunged  also  into  human  personality, 
and  became  above  all  a  painter  of  portraits  :  faces  of  a  modelling  more  skil- 
ful than  has  been  seen  before  or  since,  embodied  with  a  reality  which  almost 
amounts  to  illusion,  on  dark  air.  To  take  a  character  as  it  was,  and  delicately 
sound  its  stops,  suited  one  so  curious  in  observation,  curious  in  invention. 

Sometimes  this  curiosity  came  in  conflict  with  the  desire  of  beauty  ;  it  tended 
to  make  him  go  too  far  below  that  outside  of  things  in  which  art  begins  and 
ends.  This  struggle  between  the  reason  and  its  ideas,  and  the  senses,  the 
desire  of  beauty,  is  the  key  to  Leonardo's  life  at  Milan  —  his  restlessness, 
his  endless  re-touchings,  his  odd  experiments  with  color.  How  much  must 
he  leave  unfinished,  how  much  recommence  !  His  problem  was  the  trans- 
mutation of  ideas  into  images.  What  he  had  attained  so  far  had  been  the 
mastery  of  that  earlier  Florentine  style,  with  its  naive  and  limited  sensuous- 
ness.  Now  he  was  to  entertain  in  this  narrow  medium  those  divinations  of 
a  humanity  too  wide  for  it,  that  larger  vision  of  the  opening  world,  which  is 
only  not  too  much  for  the  great,  irregular  art  of  Shakespeare. 

H.TAINE  'VOYAGEENITALIE' 

THE  world,  perhaps,  contains  no  example  of  a  genius  so  universal  as 
Leonardo's,  so  creative,  so  incapable  of  self-contentment,  so  athirst  for 
the  infinite,  so  naturally  refined,  so  far  in  advance  of  his  own  and  of  subse- 
quent ages.      His   countenances  express   incredible   sensibility   and   mental 


Eeonartio    ha    Binci  29 

power ;  they  overflow  with  unexpressed  ideas  and  emotions.  Alongside  of 
them  Michelangelo's  personages  are  simply  heroic  athletes  ;  Raphael's  virgins 
are  only  placid  children  whose  souls  are  still  asleep.  His  beings  feel  and 
think  through  every  line  and  trait  of  their  physiognomy.  Time  is  necessary 
to  enter  into  communion  with  them  ;  not  that  their  sentiment  is  too  slightly 
marked,  for,  on  the  contrary,  it  emerges  from  the  whole  investiture;  but  it 
is  too  subtle,  too  complicated,  too  far  above  and  beyond  the  ordinary,  too 
unfathomable  and  inexplicable.  Their  immobility  and  silence  lead  one  to 
divine  two  or  three  latent  thoughts  and  to  suspect  still  others  concealed  be- 
hind the  most  remote  ;  we  have  a  confused  glimpse  of  an  inner  and  secret 
world,  like  an  unknown  delicate  vegetation  at  the  bottom  of  transparent 
waters. —  from  the  French. 

THEOPHILE    GAUTIER  'GUIDE    DE    L' AMATEUR    AU    MUSEE    DU    LOUVRE' 

NO  painter  is  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  superior.  Raphael,  Michelangelo,  and 
Correggio  may  stand  beside  him  on  the  mountain  top  ;  but  none  has 
ever  scaled  a  loftier  height.  In  respect  of  time  the  first  of  the  great  Floren- 
tines, it  was  he  who  led  the  way  to  that  pitch  of  perfection  which  has  never 
since  been  surpassed. 

To  be  thus  the  leader  and  the  unexcelled  in  art  seems  enough  of  glory ; 
yet  painting  was  but  one  of  Leonardo's  talents.  So  all-embracing  was  his 
genius,  so  endowed  was  he  with  every  faculty,  that  he  might  have  been 
equally  great  in  any  other  domain  of  human  effort.  Not  only  was  all  the 
knowledge  of  the  time  his,  but  —  a  rarer  quality  —  he  had  learned  to  look 
direct  to  nature,  and  to  look  with  unclouded  eves. 

If  you  would  take  the  full  measure  of  his  genius,  remember  that  he  worked 
after  no  set  pattern  or  model ;  that  each  of  his  productions  was  an  explora- 
tion along  a  new  line.  He  did  not,  like  other  painters,  multiply  his  works ; 
but  once  having  attained  the  especial  goal  at  which  he  aimed,  once  the  es- 
pecial ideal  realized,  he  abandoned  that  pursuit  forever.  He  was  the  man  to 
make  an  immense  number  of  studies  for  a  single  picture,  never  using  them 
again,  but  passing  on  at  once  to  some  different  exercise.  The  model  made, 
he  broke  the  mould.  His  search  was  ever  for  the  rare,  the  fundamental.  Thus 
he  has  left  traces  of  his  passage  in  every  path  of  art ;  his  foot  has  scaled  all 
summits,  but  he  seems  to  have  climbed  only  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  the 
ascent,  and  thereafter  to  have  at  once  come  down,  in  haste  to  attempt  some 
other  height.  To  make  himself  rich  or  famous  by  availing  himself  of  any  of 
the  superiorities  he  had  acquired  was  quite  outside  his  desire  ;  he  labored  only 
to  prove  to  hi //is  elf  that  he  was  superior.  Having  created  the  one  most  beau- 
tiful of  portraits,  the  one  most  beautiful  picture,  the  one  most  beautiful  fresco, 
the  one  most  beautiful  cartoon,  he  was  content,  and  gave  his  mind  to  other 
things, —  to  the  modelling  of  an  immense  horse,  to  the  building  of  the  Na- 
viglio  canal,  to  the  contriving  of  engines  of  war,  to  the  invention  of  a  diving- 
armor,  flying-machines,  and  other  more  or  less  chimerical  imaginations.  He 
suspected  the  usefulness  of  steam,  and  predicted  the  balloon  ;  he  manufac- 
tured mechanical  birds  which  flew  and  animals  which  walked.    He  made  a 


30  iWajBfter^inairt 

silver  lyre  fashioned  in  the  shape  of  a  horse's  head,  and  played  upon  it  ex- 
quisitely. He  studied  anatomy,  and  drew  admirable  myologies  of  which  he 
made  no  use.  He  manufactured  all  the  materials  he  used,  even  to  his  var- 
nishes and  colors.  He  was  distinguished  as  a  military  and  civil  engineer,  as 
a  geologist,  geographer,  and  astronomer ;  he  rediscovered  the  principles  of 
the  lever  and  of  hydraulics  ;  he  was  a  great  mathematician  and  machinist,  a 
physiologist,  and  a  chemist.  He  invented  many  serviceable  instruments  that 
are  still  in  use,  like  the  saws  employed  to-day  at  the  quarries  of  Carrara.  He 
designed  breech-loading  cannon,  and  demonstrated  the  advantages  of  conical 
bullets.  He  invented  the  camera  obscura.  He  planned  the  great  works  of 
engineering  that  have  controlled  the  courses  of  the  Arno  and  the  Po.  He 
walked  beside  the  sea,  and  understood  that  the  waters  were  composed  of 
countless  molecules.  He  watched  the  billows  in  their  rhythmical  advance, 
and  comprehended  that  light  and  sound  moved  onward  in  succeeding  waves. 
He  looked  into  the  heavens,  and  perceived  that  the  world  was  not  the  centre 
of  created  things,  forestalling  the  discovery  of  Copernicus  ;  and  he  saw  that 
the  universe  is  held  together  by  the  attraction  of  gravitation.  He  knew  that 
the  tides  obeyed  the  moon,  and  that  the  waters  of  the  sea  must  rise  highest 
at  the  equator.  Long  before  Bacon  he  evolved  a  philosophy,  looking  to  human 
experiences  and  to  nature  for  all  solution  of  his  doubts. 

And  yet  you  will  be  strangely  astray,  if,  knowing  of  all  these  attainments, 
you  conceive  him  as  a  dry  pedant,  or  bent  alchemist,  toiling  in  some  airless 
laboratory-like  studio.  No  man  was  ever  more  human,  more  lovable,  or  more 
fascinating  than  this  same  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  He  was  witty,  graceful,  pol- 
ished. His  bodily  strength  was  so  great  that  he  could  bend  an  iron  horseshoe 
like  lead.  His  physical  beauty  was  flawless, —  the  beauty  of  an  Apollo.  Great 
painter  that  he  was,  painting  was  but  one  among  his  splendid  gifts.   .  .   . 

His  ideal,  though  it  had  all  the  purity,  all  the  grace  and  perfection,  of  the 
antique,  is  in  sentiment  wholly  modern.  He  invented,  or  rather  he  discov- 
ered in  nature,  a  beauty  as  perfect  as  was  the  beauty  of  Greece,  and  yet  which 
has  no  link  with  it.  He  is  the  only  painter  who  has  known  how  to  be  beau- 
tiful without  being  antique.  He  expresses  subtleties,  suavities,  elegancies, 
quite  unknown  to  the  ancients.  The  beautiful  Greek  heads  are,  in  their  ir- 
reproachable correctness,  merely  serene  ;  those  of  Leonardo  are  sweet,  but 
not  from  any  weakness  of  soul  —  rather  from  a  sort  of  indulgent  and  benign 
superiority.  It  seems  as  if  spirits  of  quite  another  nature  than  our  own  look 
out  at  us  from  his  canvases,  through  the  eye-holes  of  the  human  physical 
mask,  with  something  of  pitying  commiseration,  and  something  like  a  hint  of 
malice.  And  the  smile,  half  voluptuous,  half  ironical,  which  floats  evasively 
upon  those  flexible  lips  —  who  has  ever  yet  deciphered  the  enigma  of  it  ?  It 
mocks  and  fascinates,  it  promises  and  refuses,  it  intoxicates  and  makes  afraid  ! 
Has  such  a  smile  ever  really  hovered  on  human  lips,  or  was  it  caught  from 
the  face  of  that  mocking  sphinx  who  forever  guards  the  Palace  of  the  Beau- 
tiful ? 

Painter  of  the  mysterious,  the  inefFable,  the  twilight,  Leonardo's  pictures 
may  be  compared  to  music  in  a  minor  key.    Time,  which  has  robbed  other 


SlconarDo    Ua    Binci  3i 

ancient  paintings  of  half  their  charm,  has  but  added  charm  to  his,  by  deep- 
ening- the  shadows  in  which  the  imao;ination  loves  to  wander  —  shadows  Hke 
veils,  which  half  dissolve  to  show  the  vision  of  a  secret  thought;  colors  that 
are  dead,  like  the  colors  of  things  in  moonlight.  Leonardo's  figures  seem  to 
have  come  from  some  superior  sphere  to  glance  at  themselves  for  a  moment 
in  a  glass  darkly,  or  rather,  in  a  mirror  of  smoked  steel,  and,  lo  !  their  re- 
flections, caught  by  some  such  subtle  alchemy  as  that  of  the  daguerreotype, 
remain  forever  fixed.  Truly  we  have  seen  them  before  —  not  on  this  earth 
indeed  ;  but  perhaps  in  some  far  pre-existence  of  which  they  awaken  the 
faint  echo  of  a  memory.  —  from  the  French. 

GEORGEB.      ROSE  'RENAISSANCEMASTERS' 

LEONARDO  DA  VINCI  was  the  first  perfect  painter  among  the  mod- 
-/  erns.  Compared  with  him  his  predecessors  are  all  primitives.  Between 
their  art  and  his  there  yawns  an  immense  chasm.  They  are  striving,  with 
doubtful  success,  to  give  tangible  form  to  simple  ideas  ;  he  bodies  forth  with 
consummate  power  thoughts  too  subtle  and  profound  for  vocal  utterance. 
Childlike  and  sincere,  their  vision  ranges  over  a  narrow  field,  and  depicts 
imperfectly  the  things  that  it  beholds  ;  while  his  powerful  mind  grasps  the 
most  hidden  secrets  of  nature  and  of  the  human  heart,  and  his  wizard  fingers 
transfer  them  to  the  canvas  with  unerring  skill.  They  are  still  mediaeval, 
while  he  is  modern,  belonging  not  to  the  past,  but  to  our  own  and  all  suc- 
ceeding generations.  Their  art  is  an  attempt ;  his  the  perfection  of  achieve- 
ment. They  are  fascinating  by  their  immaturity  ;  he  by  the  plenitude  of 
his  power.  They  are  suggestive  because  we  seek  to  realize  what  they  are 
trying  to  express;  he  is  infinitely  more  so  because  he  represents  more  than 
our  minds  can  seize.  We  feel  that  he  was  familiar  with  all  the  thoughts  that 
haunt  us  now,  perhaps  with  some  that  will  only  come  to  our  remote  de- 
scendants. He  was  the  first  modern  artist  in  whom  absolute  technical  skill 
and  a  great  creative  mind  went  hand  in  hand,  and  in  neither  respect  has  he 
ever  been  surpassed. 

No  man  has  ever  made  greater  changes  in  the  technique  of  painting.  Be- 
fore his  day  men  were  content  with  line  and  color  as  the  means  of  artistic 
utterance.  He  was  the  first  to  perceive  that  light  and  shade  were  equally 
important,  and  were  capable  of  producing  the  most  poetical  and  illusive 
effects.  He  did  not  invent  chiaroscuro,  but  he  was  the  first  to  handle  it  as 
a  master.  In  his  pictures  lights  and  shadows  are  treated  with  all  the  truth 
of  nature,  and  they  are  full  of  bewitching  loveliness,  of  mystery  and  charm. 
His  chiaroscuro  is  not  brilliant  like  Correggio's,  it  is  not  full  of  luminous 
splendor  like  that  of  Rembrandt ;  but  it  is  deep  and  true.  He  experimented 
much  with  pigments  ;  and  as  the  effect  of  time  upon  them  could  only  be  de- 
termined with  the  lapse  of  years,  he  fell  into  errors,  never  sufficiently  to  be 
deplored,  the  effects  of  which  are  only  too  visible  in  all  his  works,  and  which 
have  lost  for  us  '  The  Last  Supper '  and  the  portion  of  '  The  Battle  of  the 
Standard  '  that  was  executed  upon  the  wall.  To  deepen  his  shadows  he  painted 
upon  a  sombre  groundwork,  and  the  pigment  of  this  having  come  through, 
it  has  darkened  all  his  pictures.   .   .   . 


32  Pia^ttt^    in    "^tt 

Some  complain  of  Leonardo  that  he  enticed  men  from  the  pleasant  paths 
of  primitive  art,  so  that  after  him  it  was  impossible  to  paint  with  the  old 
simple  directness.  The  observation  is  just,  but  the  reproach  unfounded.  A 
man  who  innovated  so  much  as  Leonardo,  who  converted  the  works  of  Jiis 
predecessors  into  relics  of  the  past,  and  lifted  art  to  a  higher  and  a  broader 
plane,  necessarily  bore  it  away  from  many  a  sweet  dell  where  at  times  we 
still  delight  to  linger;  but  his  services  were  none  the  less  conspicuous.  He 
did  nothing  to  degrade  art ;  he  only  exalted  it  to  a  perfection  where  certain 
charming  qualities  of  the  delicious  primitives  became  impossible. 

Leonardo  is  the  most  thoughtful  of  all  painters,  unless  it  be  Albrecht  Diirer. 
The  mind  and  its  infinite  suggestions  are  his  realm.  With  Raphael  it  is 
beauty  and  harmony  ;  with  Michelangelo  it  is  passion  and  strength ;  with 
him  it  is  thought  and  feeling  —  thought  so  deep  that  voice  can  never  utter 
it,  feelings  so  sensitively  delicate,  so  preternaturally  refined,  tbat  they  elude 
our  grasp ;  and  he  is  full  of  all  sorts  of  curious  questionings,  of  intricate 
caprices  mingled  with  sublime  conceptions.  No  mind  of  power  so  versatile 
and  penetrating  was  ever  devoted  to  artistic  effort.  The  time  that  he  spent 
in  scientific  investigation  has  been  regretted,  but  it  was  not  lost,  even  to  art. 
Had  he  been  less  intent  to  know  the  hidden  mystery  of  things  he  might  have 
produced  more  ;  but  would  it  have  been  worth  the  smile  of  the  '  Mona  Lisa  ' 
or  the  faces  of  the  London  cartoon  ?  His  mind  was  too  vast,  too  subtle, 
for  him  to  be  a  largely  creative  artist.  He  saw  too  deeply  into  the  essence 
of  things  to  be  content  with  facile  hand  to  depict  their  surfaces.  His  visions 
were  so  beautiful  that  he  despaired  of  giving  them  tangible  shapes,  and  pre- 
ferred to  leave  them  in  the  realm  of  dreams.  Perhaps  he  wished  to  do  more 
than  art  could  do,  and  so  accomplished  less  than  it  might.  But  the  little  that 
we  possess  gives  us  a  deeper  insight  into  nature  and  the  human  heart  than 
we  should  otherwise  have  had,  and  is  as  precious  as  it  is  rare. 


%f)t  Woxk^  of  JLeonartio  l5a  ^ind 

DESCRIPTIONS      OF     THE      PLATES 

THERE  remain  in  the  world  but  five  known  pictures  which  are  without 
dissent  assigned  to  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  So  far  as  we  know,  no  voice  has 
yet  been  raised  to  question  the  authenticitv  of  the  ruined  '  Last  Supper,'  the 
unfinished  *  Mona  Lisa,'  and  the  but  just  begun  'Adoration  of  the  Magi.' 
Li  addition  to  these  are  the  cartoon  study  for  the  '  St.  Anne  '  in  Burlington 
House,  London,  and  the  barely  outlined  monochrome  sketch  of  '  St.  Je- 
rome '  in  the  Vatican  Gallery.  Endless  controversy  has  raged  and  still  rages 
over  the  authorship  of  the  'St.  John,'  the  'Virgin  of  the  Rocks,'  and  the 
'St.  Anne,'  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  angel  of  Verocchio's  'Baptism,'  in  the 
Academy  at  Florence.    The  greater  number  of  authoritative  modern  critics 


Heonartio    ha    Binci  33 

are  now,  however,  disposed  to  admit  these  as  genuine  ;  while,  on  the  contrary, 
they  consider  that  the  '  Virgin  of  the  Rocks  '  in  the  National  Gallery,  the 
'Belle  P'eronniere,'  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  'Portrait  of  an  Unknown  Prin- 
cess,' in  the  Ambrosiana  at  Milan,  are  not  Leonardo's  work,  although  each  of 
them  has  its  stout  partisans.  Other  paintings  formerly  attributed  to  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  seem  to  have  no  just  claims  to  be  reckoned  as  his  work. 

PORTRAIT     OF      MONA      LISA  LOUVRE:    PARIS 

"T?OR  Francesco  del  Giocondo,"  wrote  Vasari,  "  Leonardo  undertook  to 
J?  paint  the  portrait  of  Mona  Lisa,  his  wife  ;  but,  after  loitering  over  it 
for  four  years,  he  finally  left  it  unfinished.  Mona  Lisa  was  exceedingly  beau- 
tiful, and  while  Leonardo  was  painting  her  portrait  he  took  the  precaution 
of  1  eeping  some  one  constantly  near  her  to  sing  or  play  on  instruments,  or 
to  jest  and  otherwise  amuse  her,  to  the  end  that  she  might  continue  cheer- 
ful." It  was  probably  in  1500  that  Leonardo  began  this,  the  most  marvel- 
lous of  all  portraits,  antique  or  modern. 

"'La  Gioconda'  is,"  writes  Walter  Pater,  "in  the  truest  sense,  Leo- 
nardo's masterpiece,  the  revealing  instance  of  his  mode  of  thought  and  work. 
We  all  know  the  face  and  hands  of  the  figure,  set  in  its  marble  chair,  in  that 
cirque  of  fantastic  rocks,  as  in  some  faint  light  under  sea.  Perhaps  of  all 
ancient  pictures  time  has  chilled  it  least.  As  often  happens  with  works  in 
which  invention  seems  to  reach  its  limit,  there  is  an  element  in  it  given  to, 
not  invented  by,  the  master.  From  childhood  we  see  this  image  definino; 
itself  on  the  fabric  of  his  dreams ;  and  but  for  express  historical  testimony, 
we  might  fancy  that  this  was  but  his  ideal  lady,  embodied  and  beheld  at  last. 
What  was  the  relationship  of  a  living  Florentine  to  this  creature  of  his 
thought  ?  By  means  of  what  strange  affinities  had  the  person  and  the  dream 
grown  up  thus  apart,  and  yet  so  closely  together  ?  Present  from  the  first  in- 
corporeally  in  Leonardo's  thought,  dimly  traced  in  the  designs  of  Verocchio, 
she  is  found  present  at  last  in  II  Giocondo's  house. 

"  The  presence  that  thus  rose  so  strangely  beside  the  waters  is  expressive 
of  what  in  the  ways  of  a  thousand  years  men  had  come  to  desire.  Hers  is 
the  head  upon  which  all  '  the  ends  of  the  world  are  come,'  and  the  eyelids 
are  a  little  weary.  It  is  a  beauty  wrought  out  from  within  upon  the  flesh, 
the  deposit,  little  cell  by  cell,  of  strange  thoughts  and  fantastic  reveries  and 
exquisite  passions.  Set  it  for  a  moment  beside  one  of  those  white  Greek 
goddesses  or  beautiful  women  of  antiquity,  and  how  would  they  be  troubled 
by  this  beauty,  into  which  the  soul  with  all  its  maladies  has  passed  !  She  is 
older  than  the  rocks  among  which  she  sits  ;  like  the  vampire,  she  has  been 
dead  many  times,  and  learned  the  secrets  of  the  grave  ;  and  has  been  a  diver 
in  deep  seas,  and  keeps  their  fallen  day  about  her ;  and  trafficked  for  strange 
webs  with  Eastern  merchants  ;  and,  as  Leda,  was  the  mother  of  Helen  of 
Troy  ;  and,  as  St.  Anne,  the  mother  of  Mary  ;  and  all  this  has  been  to  her 
but  as  the  sound  of  lyres  and  flutes,  and  lives  only  in  the  delicacy  with  which 
it  has  moulded  the  changing  lineaments,  and  tinged  the  eyelids  and  the 
hands." 


34  ;^  a^  tet  ^    in    ^tt 

THEVIRGINOFTHEROCKS  LOUVRE:     PARIS 

"  T  TOW  mysterious,  how  charming,  and  how  strange,"  writes  Theophile 
X.  X  Gautier,  "  is  this  '  Virgin  of  the  Rocks  '  !  A  kind  of  basaltic  cave,  in 
which  flows  a  stream  that  through  its  Hmpid  water  shows  the  pebbles  of  its  bed, 
shelters  the  holy  group,  while  beyond,  through  the  arched  entrance  to  the  grotto, 
lies  a  rocky  landscape,  sparsely  set  with  trees,  wherein  a  river  runs  ;  —  and  all 
of  this  is  of  such  an  indefinable  color  that  it  seems  like  those  faint  wonderlands 
through  which  we  wander  in  our  dreams.  And  the  adorable  Madonna,  with 
the  pure  oval  of  her  cheeks,  her  exquisite  chin,  her  downcast  eyes  circled  by  a 
shadowy  penumbra,  on  her  lips  that  vague,  enigmatic  smile  which  Da  Vinci 
loved  to  give  the  faces  of  his  women,  —  she  is  a  type  all  Leonardo's  own,  and 
recalls  nothing  of  Perugino's  Virgins  or  of  Raphael's.  The  attendant  angel 
has,  perhaps,  the  finest  head  and  the  proudest  that  ever  pencil  traced  on  can- 
vas. Half  youth,  half  heavenly  maid,  she  must  belong  to  the  highest  order 
of  heaven's  hierarchy,  with  that  face  so  pure,  so  ethereal  in  its  loveHness, 
the  omnipresent  smile  half  hidden  at  the  corner  of  her  lips.  Hers  surpasses 
all  human  beauty,  and  her  face  seems  rather  that  face  of  which  men  may 
only  dream.  The  little  St.  John,  whom  the  Virgin  presents  to  the  divine  Child, 
kneels  among  delicate  flowers  on  the  sward ;  while  the  latter,  with  upraised 
fingers,  blesses  him.  Nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  the  foreshort- 
ening of  the  two  tender  little  crouching  bodies,  nothing  more  finely  modelled 
than  the  little  limbs,  with  their  infinitely  delicate  gradations  of  shadow.  The 
coloring  of  the  picture,  though  time  has  blackened  it,  still  keeps  a  subtle 
harmony,  more  in  accord,  perhaps,  with  the  subject  than  fresher  and  brighter 
tones.  The  colors  have  faded  in  such  perfect  accord  that  there  results  a  sort 
of  neutral  tone,  abstract,  ideal,  mysterious,  which. shrouds  the  forms  as  if 
with  some  unearthly  veil." 

THE     VIRGIN     OF     THE      ROCKS  -        NATIONAL     GALLERY:      LONDON 

THOUGH  very  similar  in  general  effect,  '  The  Virgin  of  the  Rocks  '  in 
the  National  Gallery  differs  from  that  in  the  Louvre  in  one  important 
particular.  In  the  former  the  angel  does  not  look  directly  out  of  the  picture 
nor  point  to  the  infant  Baptist.  The  ill-drawn  gilt  nimbuses  over  the  heads 
of  the  three  principal  figures,  as  well  as  the  clumsy  reed  cross  which  rests 
on  St.  John's  shoulder,  are  additions  of  a  comparatively  late  period,  probably 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  the  right  hand  of  the  Virgin  has  been 
coarsely  repainted.  In  general  the  National  Gallery  picture  is  softer  in  out- 
line and  less  severe. 

There  has  been  almost  unending  controversy  as  to  which  of  the  two  pic- 
tures is  by  the  hand  of  Leonardo  ;  but  the  weight  of  criticism  is  now  in 
favor  of  the  hypothesis  that  the  Louvre  picture  is  the  original,  and  that 
'  The  Virgin  of  the  Rocks  '  in  the  National  Gallery  is  a  replica,  probably 
painted  under  the  master's  supervision  and  perhaps  in  his  studio.  A  recent 
writer  in  'The  Ouarterly  Review  '  has  summed  up  the  conclusions  with  which 
most  critics  now  a^ree.     "There  can  be  little  doubt,"  he  says,  "that  in  the 


itconartio    Da    TDinci  35 

Louvre  'Virgin  '  we  have  the  original  altar-piece,  which  I^eonardo  executed 
about  1490,  or  even  earlier,  for  the  chapel  of  the  Conception  in  San  PVan- 
cesco  at  Milan,  and  which  he  asked  the  duke's  leave  to  retain,  seeing  that 
another  patron  had  offered  to  give  one  hundred  florins  tor  the  picture,  while 
the  friars  refused  to  pay  more  than  twenty-five.  The  painter's  request,  we 
can  well  believe,  was  readily  granted,  and  his  picture  became  the  property 
of  some  munificent  patron,  from  whom  it  passed  into  the  collection  of 
Francis  I.  at  Fontainebleau.  The  replica  in  the  National  Gallery  was  per- 
haps painted  by  Ambrogio  de  Predis,  —  who  had  already  agreed  to  execute 
the  angels  on  the  wings  of  the  altar-piece,  —  and  was  substituted  for  the 
master's  original  work.  It  hung  over  the  altar  of  the  Francescan  church 
until  the  year  1777,  when  it  was  bought  bv  Gavin  Hamilton  for  thirty 
ducats,  and  brought  to  England.  The  smallness  of  the  sum  is  the  best  proof 
that  the  picture  was  not  regarded  as  a  genuine  Leonardo,  since  the  great 
master's  works  were  held  in  the  highest  estimation  at  Milan,  and  Charles  L 
had  vainly  off'ered  three  hundred  ducats  for  any  one  of  his  manuscripts  in 
that  city.  Moreover,  a  series  of  original  drawings  at  Windsor  and  Paris,  in- 
cluding the  heads  of  the  children,  and  the  angel  with  the  outstretched  finger, 
bear  witness  to  the  genuineness  of  the  Louvre  picture,  and  the  finer  and 
more  delicate  quality  of  the  painting  reveals  the  master's  hand  ;  while  the 
slight  alterations  and  improvements  in  the  composition  of  the  National  Gal- 
lery group  afford  a  further  proof  that  it  was  a  later  work,  probably  executed 
under  Leonardo's  eve." 

On  the  other  hand,  Miindler,  Springer,  Walter  Armstrong,  Sidney  Colvin, 
and  other  eminent  critics  are  strong-  in  the  belief  that  the  National  Gal- 
lery  '  Virgin  '  is  by  Leonardo's  own  hand. 

PORTRAIT    OF    AN    UNKNOWN    PRINCESS  AMBROSIAN    LIBRARY:     MILAN 

FOR  a  long  time  this  exquisite  picture  was  considered  to  be  Leonardo's 
portrait  of  Princess  Beatrice  d'Este,  wife  of  Lodovico  Sforza,  Duke  of 
Milan.  Morelli  was  the  first  critic  to  doubt  the  authenticity  of  the  work,  and 
his  opinion  has  been  endorsed  by  Frizzoni,  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle,  Beren- 
son,  Woltmann  and  Woermann.  On  the  other  hand  Rumohr,  Miindler, 
Brun,  Burckhardt,  and  Miintz  believe  that  the  picture  is  by  Leonardo's  own 
hand  ;  and  the  controversy  still  continues.  Dr.  Bode,  who  has  devoted  much 
study  to  the  picture,  is  convinced  of  its  authenticity,  although  he  has  proved 
that  it  represents  neither  Beatrice  d'Este,  nor,  as  later  critics  believed,  Bianca 
Maria  Sforza,  wife  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian.  "  It  is,"  writes  Burckhardt, 
"  beyond  all  description  beautiful ;  and  of  a  perfection  in  the  execution  which, 
even  if  it  does  not  show  all  the  characteristics  of  Leonardo's  hand,  excludes 
the  possibility  oT  any  other  authorship." 

The  princess  wears  a  red  bodice,  in  harmony  with  her  chestnut  haip,  tVnich 
is  drawn  down  along  her  cheeks,  and  fastened  under  a  pearl  embroidered  net. 
"  The  whole  work,"  says  Miintz,  "  breathes  an  air  of  youth,  of  tender  grace, 
and  of  freshness  that  none  but  Leonardo  could  have  imparted  to  it." 


36  iilaj^terjefin^rt 

ST.     JOHN     THE     BAPTIST  LOUVRE:    PARIS 

IN  all  probability  a  genuine  work,  this  picture,  once  in  the  collection  of 
Francis  I.,  has  darkened  greatly,  and  bears  signs  of  having  been  repainted 
in  some  parts  ;  but  the  delicacy  and  refinement  of  modelling  in  the  face,  and 
the  characteristic  and  subtle  type  of  beauty,  could  have  come  from  Leonar- 
do's hand  alone. 

"  Surely  this  enigmatic  figure,  glowing  suddenly  out  of  the  profoundest 
shadow,  whose  face  wears  an  expression  half  voluptuous,  half  sardonic,  and 
altogether  disturbing  and  impenetrable,"  writes  Theophile  Gautier,  "  cannot, 
in  spite  of  the  cross  of  reeds  and  the  heaven-pointing  finger,  be  the  ascetic 
hermit  of  the  Scriptures,  whose  loins  were  bound  with  hides,  and  whose  meat 
was  locusts  and  wild  honey.  Nay,  rather  is  he  one  of  those  decayed  gods, 
Pan,  perhaps,  that  Heine  tells  us  of,  who,  to  maintain  themselves  after  the 
fall  of  paganism,  took  employment  in  the  new  religion.  He  makes  the  ac- 
customed gesture  indeed,  but  he  knows  more  secret  rites,  and  smiles  his  subtle 
smile  at  those  whom  he  would  take  into  his  confidence." 

\ 

THE     LAST      SUPPERI  SANTA      MARIA      DELLE     GRAZIE:    MILAN 

""j\  /TOST  important  of  all  Leonardo's  works,"  write  Woltmann  and 
lyX.  Woermann,  "  is  '  The  Last  Supper.'  Painted  within  a  few  years  of  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  in  oils,  on  a  wall  in  the  refectory  of  Santa 
Maria  delle  Grazie,  it  cast  everything  that  art  had  up  to  then  produced  alto- 
gether into  the  shade.  What  now  remains  is  but  the  pale  ghost  of  what  the 
picture  originally  was  ;  for  Leonardo's  attempt  to  apply  the  technique  of  oil- 
painting  to  wall  decoration  on  so  vast  a  scale  has  been  fatal ;  and  as  early 
as  1566  Vasari  speaks  of  the  work  as  a  ruin.  Moreover,  it  has  sufi^ered  every 
kind  of  damage  ;  a  door  was  cut  through  it  in  the  seventeenth  century,  over 
\^hich  an  escutcheon  was  nailed  to  the  wall,  and  in  the  eighteenth  a  bungling 
restorer  continued  the  work  of  destruction.  The  coup  de  grace  was  given 
during  Napoleon's  invasion,  when  the  hall  was  put  to  every  variety  of  base 
use.  At  last  came  a  time  of  more  intelligent  restoration,  and  the  defacements 
of  later  painters,  at  any  rate,  were  removed.  At  the  present  time,  in  spite 
of  its  deplorable  condition,  the  spectator  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  by  the 
grandeur  of  the  figures  —  almost  twice  the  size  of  life  —  and  by  the  sculp- 
turesque simplicity  of  the  composition." 

"  It  is  the  first  masterpiece  of  the  perfected  Renaissance,"  writes  Symonds. 
"  Other  painters  had  represented  the  Last  Supper  as  a  solemn  prologue  to  the 
Passion,  or  as  the  mystical  inauguration  of  the  greatest  Christian  sacrament  j 
but  none  had  dared  to  break  the  calm  of  the  event  by  dramatic  action.  The 
school  of  Giotto,  Fra  Angelico,  Ghirlandajo,  Perugino,  even  Signorelli,  re- 
mained within  the  sphere  of  symbolical  suggestion  ;  and  their  work  gained 
in  dignity  what  it  lost  in  intensity.    Leonardo  combined  both.    He  under- 

^  The  negative  from  which  our  engraving  of  this  picture  is  made  has  been  carefully  retouched  to  hide 
the  scaling  of  plaster  from  the  vifall,  and  to  partially  restore  some  of  the  darkened  lights.  Therefore,  though 
faithful  in  general  effect,  it  gives  a  less  ruinous  impression  than  does  the  original. 


Heonartio    tia    Binci  37 

took  to  paint  a  moment,  to  delineate  the  effect  of  a  single  word  upon  twelve 
men  seated  at  a  table,  and  to  do  this  without  sacrificing  the  tranquillity  de- 
manded by  ideal  art,  and  without  impairing  the  divine  majesty  of  Him  from 
whose  lips  that  word  has  fallen.  The  ideal  representation  of  a  dramatic 
moment,  the  life  breathed  into  each  part  of  the  composition,  the  variety  of 
the  types  chosen  to  express  the  varieties  of  character,  and  the  scientific  dis- 
tribution of  the  twelve  apostles  in  four  groups  of  three  around  the  central 
Christ,  mark  the  appearance  of  a  new  spirit  of  power  and  freedom  in  the 
arts.  What  had  hitherto  been  treated  with  religious  timidity,  with  conven- 
tional stiffness,  or  with  realistic  want  of  grandeur,  was  now  humanized,  and 
at  the  same  time  transported  into  a  higher  intellectual  region  ;  and  though^ 
Leonardo  discrowned  the  apostles  of  their  aureoles,  he  for  the  first  time  in' 
the  history  of  painting  created  a  Christ  not  unworthy  to  be  worshipped  as  the 
praesens  Deus." 

LA  BELLE  FERONNIERE  LOUVRE:  PARIS 

"/^F  works  ordinarily  claimed  for  Leonardo,"  writes  Sidney  Colvin,  "the 
V^  best  and  nearest  to  his  manner,  if  not  actually  his,  is  the  portrait  known 
as  '  La  Belle  Feronniere.'  "  This  picture,  formerly  believed  without  question 
to  be  the  work  of  Leonardo,  has  of  recent  years  been  the  subject  of  much 
controversy  among  the  critics,  of  whom  Morelli,  Frizzoni,  Richter,  Arm- 
strong, Berenson,  and  others  see  in  it  no  mark  of  Leonardo's  hand  ;  while 
Miintz,  Rosenberg,  Liibke,  Brun,  Gruyer,  and  others  uphold  the  authorship 
of  that  master.  Conjectures  as  to  the  identity  of  the  person  represented  have 
also  been  numerous.  That  the  lady  was  the  wife  of  the  French  advocate 
Feron,  a  theory  which  won  for  the  picture  the  title  by  which  it  is  still 
known,  is  no  longer  credited,  According  to  some  critics,  the  portrait  is  a 
likeness  of  Isabella  of  Mantua  ;  according  to  others  it  represents  a  Milanese 
lady,  Lucrezia  Crivelli  by  name. 

Although  disfigured  by  cracks  and  injured  by  repainting,  the  picture  still 
possesses  great  charm.  "  It  has  all  the  freshness  and  simplicity  of  the  primi- 
tives," writes  Miintz,  "  with  an  added  grace  and  liberty."  Rosenberg,  who 
gives  the  picture  unreservedly  to  Leonardo,  assigning  it  to  the  early  part  of 
the  master's  stay  in  Milan,  reasons  that,  "notwithstanding  a  certain  sharp- 
ness in  the  modelling,  and  notwithstanding  that  it  shows  no  sign  of  that 
celebrated  sfumato  of  Leonardo's,  —  the  blending  of  colors  and  dissolving  of 
outlines  in  a  vaporous  light,  —  if  we  think  not  of  Leonardo  as  he  was  in  later 
days,  but  only  of  those  who  were  his  contemporaries  when  this  picture  was 
painted,  it  will  be  difficult  to  name  any  who  could  have  so  fathomed  the  human 
soul  and  caused  it  to  speak  through  the  eyes  as  Leonardo  has  succeeded  in 
doing  in  this  portrait." 

ANGEL     FROM      VEROCCHIO'S      'BAPTISM'  ACADEMY:     FLORENCE 

IN  the  year  147  0,  or  147  2,  when  Leonardo  was  but  eighteen  or  twenty 
years  of  age,  Vasari  tells  us  that  he  painted  "  an  angel  holding  some  vest- 
ments "  in  Verocchio's  picture  of  the   'Baptism  of  Christ,'  and  that  "  al- 


38  0ia^tct^in'^tt 

though  but  a  youth,  he  completed  the  figure  in  such  a  manner  that  the  angel 
was  much  better  than  the  portion  executed  by  his  master,  which  caused  the 
latter  never  to  touch  colors  more."  The  last  part  of  this  story  is  certainly 
exaggerated,  and  probably  false  ;  but  no  one  who  has  seen  Leonardo's  angel 
—  "a  space  of  sunlight  in  the  cold,  labored  old  picture,"  as  Walter  Pater 
calls  it  —  can  doubt  that  the  marked  ability  of  the  pupil  must  have  forcibly 
struck  Verocchio,  and  that  Leonardo's  youthful  work  influenced,  although 
it  assuredly  did  not  discourage,  the  older  master. 

A  few  authorities,  Richter  among  them,  believe  that  more  than  the  left- 
hand  kneeling  angel  in  this  picture  was  Leonardo's  work,  because  much  of 
it  is  painted  in  oils,  while  Verocchio's  medium  was  tempera  ;  but  the  major- 
ity of  critics  still  consider  that  Leonardo's  share  in  the  work  was  confined  to 
the  figure  assigned  to  him  by  Vasari. 

ST,     ANNE,     THE    VIRGIN,     AND    THE    CHRIST-CHILD        '  LOUVRE:     PARIS 

"^~f~^HIS  picture,  which  represents  the  Virgin,  the  young  Christ,  and  St. 
A.  Anne  (usually  called  merely  the  '  St.  Anne  '  ),  is  a  work  of  singular 
nobility,  of  the  most  idyllic  poetry,  and  of  splendid  virtuosity,"  writes  Gruyer ; 
*'but  one  in  which  Leonardo,  as  in  his  picture  of  'St.  John  the  Baptist '  has 
ruthlessly  sacrificed  religious  conventions.  What  would  Fra  Angelico  have 
thought  of  it  ?  Seated  on  the  knees  of  St.  Anne,  her  mother,  the  Virgin  leans 
towards  Christ,  who  holds  a  lamb  by  both  ears,  attempting,  with  a  most 
charmingly  childlike  action,  to  bestride  it.  His  figure  may  possibly  have 
been  painted  by  a  pupil  or  by  an  imitator ;  it  is  unfinished,  but  there  are 
weak  points  in  the  technical  execution.  With  St.  Anne  and  the  Virgin 
the  case  is  quite  different,  for  into  these  figures  Leonardo  has  put  all  his 
genius,  and  in  them  the  interest  of  the  picture  centres.  One  is  the  mother 
of  the  other ;  but  Leonardo  chose  to  represent  them  both  as  young  with  the 
same  youth,  beautiful  with  the  same  haunting  beauty,  and  no  logical  objec- 
tions prevented  his  carrying  out  this  design.  The  pure  loveliness  and  har- 
mony of  the  two  figures  is  enthralling.  They  are  both  enchantresses,  dow- 
ered with  a  strange,  mysterious  and  sensuous  beauty  that  seems  made  up  of 
light  and  shade, —  pure  spirit,  with  no  admixture  of  human  clay.  Nowhere 
more  fully  than  in  the  Virgin's  face  has  the  master  expressed  that  seductive 
and  profane  loveliness  which  haunted  his  own  visions.  The  landscape  which 
serves  as  a  background  to  the  figures  —  a  landscape  of  strewn  rocks  and 
water  and  purple  distances  hemmed  in  by  azure  mountains  with  the  rugged 
and  broken  outlines  that  he  loved  —  adds  an  ineffable  something  to  their 
mystery,  and  their  grandeur." 

ADORATION  OF  THE   MAGI  UFFIZI   GALLERY:   FLORENCE 

THIS  unfinished  work  is  generally  believed  to  be  the  altar-piece  which 
Leonardo  was  commissioned  by  the  monks  of  San  Donato  at  Scopeto 
to  paint  for  their  church,  on  condition  that  it  should  be  finished  within  two 
years  and  a  half.  As  Leonardo  failed  to  comply  with  this  condition,  the 
work  was  intrusted  to  Filippino  Lippi. 


it  c  0  n  a  r  ti  0    li  a    1^  i  n  c  i  39 

A  writer  in  *  The  Athenaeum,'  in  describing  the  study,  says,  "  There  are 
few  pictures  that  awaken  more  ardent  curiosity  in  the  student  of  painting 
than  this  panel.  Little  more  than  a  dark  monochrome,  at  first  glance  ahnost 
chaotic,  and  with  many  of  the  figures  vei'ed  in  obscurity,  it  is  without  any 
of  the  alluring  qualities  which  solicit  popular  attention.  The  figures  are 
firmly  outlined  with  a  pen,  and  the  shadows  rubbed  in  with  umber.  Only  a 
portion  of  the  background  —  the  sky  and  some  foliage  —  is  commenced  in 
solid  pigments,  but  Leonardo's  dramatic  conception  fortunately  remains  in 
all  its  force  and  intensity.  He  has  placed  the  Virgin,  holding  the  Saviour 
in  her  arms,  in  the  centre  of  the  panel  and  in  the  immediate  foreground. 
A  choir  of  angels  lean  over  the  grassy  bank  behind  her.  On  either  side  two 
compact  groups  of  men  press  forward  towards  the  Child.  There  is  no  stable 
nor  manger,  but  in  the  background  are  antique  ruins,  with  large  flights  of 
steps,  and  on  these  are  groups  of  armed  men.  Other  groups  of  horsemen, 
dimly  apparent  behind  the  principal  figures,  are  in  violent  action,  and  really 
anticipate  the  composition  of  '  The  Battle  of  the  Standard,'  designed  more 
than  twenty  years  later." 

THE     PAINTINGS      OF     LEONARDO      DA    VINCI,     WITH     THEIR     PRESENT 

LOCATIONS 

FRANCE.     Paris,   Louvre :  Portrait  of  Mona  Lisa  (Plate  i);  St.  John  the  Baptist 
(Plate  VI);  Virghi  of  the  Rocks  (Plate  ii);  St.  Anne,  the  Virgin,  and  the  Christ-child 
(Plate  ix)  —  ITALY.  Florence,  Academy:  Angel  in  Verocchio's  'Baptism'  (Plate  viii) 

—  Florence,  Uffizi  Gallery:  Adoration  of  the  Magi  (Plate  x)  —  Milan,  Sta.  Maria 
Delle  Grazie:  The  Last  Supper  (Plate  v)  —  Rome,  Vatican  Gallery:  St.  Jerome. 

principal     paintings     ascribed     to      LEONARDO      DA      VINCI 

AUSTRIA.  Vienna,  Liechtenstein  Gallery:  Portrait  of  a  Young  Woman  — 
IX.  ENGLAND.  London,  National  Gallery:  Virgin  of  the  Rocks  (Plate  iii)  — 
FRANCE.    Paris,  Louvre:    'La  Belle  Feronniere '  (Plate  vii);  Annunciation;  Bacchus 

—  GERMANY.  Berlin  Gallery:  The  Resurrection  —  ITALY.  Florence,  Pitti 
Palace:  Portrait  of  a  Jeweller;  'LaMonaca' — Florence,  Uffizi  Gallery:  Annun- 
ciation—  Milan,  Ambrosian  Library:  Portrait  of  an  Unknown  Princess  (Plate  iv); 
Portrait  of  a  Man  —  RUSSIA.    St.  Petersburg,  Hermitage  Gallery:  Litta  Madonna. 


ileonarlro  lia  Wtmt  Btfiltosrapf)? 

A      LIST     OF     THE      PRINCIPAL      BOOKS     AND      MAGAZINE    ARTICLES 
DEALING      WITH      LEONARDO      DA     VINCI 

AMORETTI,  C.  Memorie  Storiche  su  da  Vinci.  (Milan,  1804)  —  Berenson,  B. 
.Florentine  Renaissance  Painters.  (New  York,  1896)  —  Blassis,  C.  de:  Da  Vinci. 
(Milan,  1872)  —  BoiTO,  C.  Leonardo  e  Michelangelo.  (Milan,  1879)  —  Bossi,  G.  Cena- 
colo  di  L.  da  Vinci.  (Milan,  1810)  —  Brown,  J.  W.  Life  of  Da  Vinci.  (London,  i  828) 
—  Brun,  C.  Da  Vinci  [in  Dohme's  Kunst  und  Kimstler,  etc.]  (Leipsic,  1879)  —  Burck- 
HARDT,  J.    Der  Cicerone  [edited  by  \V.  Bode]  (Leipsic,   1898)  —  Campori,  G.    Nuovi 


40  0iei^ttt^    in    '^tt 

Documenti  per  la  vita  di  L.  da  Vinci.  (Modena,  1865)  —  Clement,  C.  Michelangelo,  Da 
Vinci,  Raphael:  Trans,  by  Louisa  Corckran.  (London,  1880)  —  Colvin,  S.  Da  Vinci 
[in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica] .  (Edinburgh,  1883)  —  Courajod,  L.  Da  Vinci  et  la  statue  de 
Sfbrza.  (Paris,  1879)  —  Delecluze,  E.  Saggio  intorno  a  L.  da  Vinci.  (Siena,  1844)  — 
Favaro,  a.  Di  alcuni  recenti  lavori  su  da  Vinci.  (Venice,  1892)  —  Frizzoni,  G.  Arte 
Italiana  del  Rinascimento,  etc.  (Milan,  1891)  —  Fumagalli.  Scuola  di  L.  da  Vinci. 
(?i8ii)  —  Gallenberg,  H.  Da  Vinci.  (Leipsic,  1834) — Gautier,  T.  GuidedeTam- 
ateurau  Musee  du  Louvre.  (Paris,  1882)  —  Goethe,  J.  W.  voN.  Works:  '  Schriften  zur 
Kunst.'  (Weimar,  1898) — Heaton,  M.  M.  Da  Vinci.  (London,  1874)  —  Houssaye, 
A.  De  Vinci.  (Paris,  1876)  —  Jameson,  A.  Memoirs  of  Italian  Painters.  (New  York, 
1896)  —  Landon,  C.  P.  Vie  etPoeuvre  de  L.  da  Vinci.  (Paris,  181 1) — Lomazzo,  G.  P. 
Trattato  della  Pittura.  (Milan,  1584)  —  Magni,  B.  Dalla  storia  dell'  arte  Italiana,  etc. 
(Rome,  1898)  —  MiLANESi,  C.  P.  Documenti  inediti.  (Florence,  1872) — Morelli, 
G.  Italian  Painters:  Trans,  by  C.  J.  Ffoulkes.  (London,  1893)  —  Muller-Walde,  P. 
Da  Vinci,  etc.  (Munich,  1889)  —  Muntz,  E.  Da  Vinci.  (London,  1898)  —  Panzac- 
CHi,  E.  Vita  Italiana  nel  Rinascimento.  (Milan,  1899)  —  Pater,  W.  Renaissance  Stud- 
ies. (London,  1873)  —  Raab,  F.  Da  Vinci  als  Naturforscher.  (Berlin,  i  880)  —  Ravais- 
soN-MoLLiEN,  C.  Pages  et  apocryphes  de  L.  de  Vinci.  (Nogent-le-Rotrou,  1888)  — 
Richter,  J.  P.  Da  Vinci.  (London,  1884)  —  Rio,  A.  F.  Da  Vinci  e  la  sua  scuola. 
(Milan,  1857)  —  Rose,  G.  B.  Renaissance  Masters.  (New  York,  1898)  —  Rosenberg,  A. 
Da  Vinci  [Kiinstler  Monographien]  .  (Leipsic,  1898) — Rousseau,  J.  De  Vinci.  (Brus- 
sels, 1888)  —  Seailles,  G.  Da  Vinci.  (Paris,  1892)  —  Stillman,  W,  J.  Old  Italian 
Masters.  (New  York,  1893)  —  Taine,  H.  Voyage  en  Italic.  (Paris,  1866)  —  Thausing, 
M.  Wiener  Kunstbriefe.  (Leipsic,  1884) — UziELLi,  G.  Ricerche  intorno  a  Da  Vinci. 
(Turin,  1896)  —  Uzielli,  G.  Da  Vinci  e  le  Alpi.  (Turin,  1890)  —  Uzielli,  G.  Da 
Vinci  e  tre  gentildonne  milanesi.  (Pinerolo,  1890) — Vasari,  G.  Lives  of  the  Painters. 
(New  York,  1897)  —  Woltmann,  A.,  and  Woermann,  K.  History  of  Painting:  Trans, 
by  Clara  Bell.    (London,  1887). 

magazine    articles 

ACADEMY,  1899:  Magnificent  and  Multiform  Leonardo —L'Archivio  Storico 
jl\.  DEH-'  Arte,  I:  Nuovi  Documenti  su  da  Vinci  (A.  Venturi).  I:  Da  Vinci  e  Isabella 
d'Este  (A.  Luzio).  II:  Un  quadro  di  L.  da  Vinci  (C.  v.  Fabriczy).  IV:  La  Monaca  (F. 
Ridolfi)  —  L'Art,  1886,  1887,  1888,  1889:  Da  Vinci  (E.  Miintz)  — L'Artiste,  1865, 
1867,  1868,  1869:  De  Vinci  (A.  Houssaye)  —  Art  Journal,  1894:  'Virgin  of  the 
Rocks'  (J.  P.  Richter),  'Virgin  of  the  Rocks'  (E.  J.  Poynter)  —  Athen^um,  1885: 
Da  Vinci.  1892:  'St.  Anne'  (A.  Marks),  'St.  Anne'  (E.  Miintz).  1898:  Miintz's  Life 
of  Leonardo — Atlantic  Monthly,  1894:  New  Reading  of  Da  Vinci  —  Blackwood's 
Magazine,  1840:  Da  Vinci  and  Correggio  —  Chambers  Journal,  1893:  Genius  of 
Leonardo  —  Edinburgh  Review,  1875:  Da  Vinci  —  Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts,  1886: 
Derniers  travaux  surde  Vinci  (H.  von  Geymiiller).  1887:  De  Vinci  au  Louvre  (A.  Gruyer). 
1890:  La  Vierge  a  Toeuillet  (H.  von  Geymiiller).  1897:  Le  Carton  a  la  Royal  Academy 
(H.  F.Cook).  1898:  Dernieres  annees  de  Leonardo  (E.  Miintz)  —  Jahrbuch  der  Preus- 
sisCHEN  Kunstsammlungen,  1884:  Leonardo's  Altartafel  der  Auferstehung  Christi  (W. 
Bode).  1889:  Bildnis  der  Bianca  Maria  Sforza  (W.  Bode).  1895 :  Leonardo's  Entwicke- 
lung  als  Maler  (J.  Strzygowski).  1897,  1898,  1899:  Da  Vinci  (P.  Miiller-Walde)  —  Lon- 
don Quarterly  Review,  1875:  Leonardo  and  His  Works  —  Magazine  of  Art,  1884: 
Cartoon  by  Lionardo  (J.  Cartwright).  1899:  Miintz's 'Leonardo'  (W.  Armstrong).  1899: 
Miintz's  'Leonardo'  (C.  Millard).  1899:  Reply  to  Mr.  Millard  (E.  Miintz) — Nouvelle 
Revue,  vol.  95:  La  Methode  de  Vinci  (P.  Valery)  —  Portfolio,  1893:  Da  Vinci  and 
the  Antique  (E.  Miintz)  —  Quarterly  Review,  1899:  Da  Vinci — Repertorium  fur 
bildende  Kunst,  1 891 :  Die  Madonna  von  der  Felsgrotte,  Paris  und  London  (W.  Koop- 
man)  —  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1887:  La  Jeunessede  Leonardo  (E.  Miintz)  —  Revue 
Encyclopedique,  1894:  Portraits  de  Vinci  (E.  Miintz)  —  Scribner's  Monthly,  1879: 
Da  Vinci  (C.  Cook)  —  Zeitschrift  fur  bildende  Kunst,  1889:  Leonardofragen  (A. 
Springer).    1894:  Die  weiblichen  Bildnisse,  Louvre  und  Ambrosiana  (G.  Frizzoni). 


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